Growing up I remember planning for weeks what we would do to celebrate our mom for Mother's Day -- burning toast and making weak coffee to serve her in bed, drawing pictures, picking flowers, doing our very best to not frustrate her by bickering with my twin sister.

Now that I'm a mom myself, though, I know that none of that is what the holiday is about. Yes, I'm sure moms appreciate all those crafts made from your kiddo's handprints you get from preschool or the wildflower in the hand-painted pot. But what I've discovered it is really about is celebrating my kids.

As moms -- working, stay at home, single, married, whatever -- we often find ourselves getting caught up in all we've sacrificed.

Miles and Owen Doyle(Photo: Abbey Doyle)

Climbing the corporate ladder is a lot harder to do when you've got two kids to pull up there with you.

Travel, what travel? The idea of finding childcare for your kiddos for a Friday night date night is hard enough. The thought of managing a week away to Thailand makes me hyperventilate.

I used to be able to have conversations with my husband. Now we have to beg the boys to let us talk for 90 seconds before their excited interjections about the earthworms they excavated in the backyard.

Speaking of earthworms, I've given up any hope of having a house with any semblance of organization (and lack of sticky little boy handprints and mud tracks), at least for another 15 years or so.

I remember hearing the term "touched out." I had no idea what it meant. Then I had kids. I've given up all ideas of personal space as my lap is for sitting, my arms for answering the "momma hold me" pleas and my legs for horsey rides.

For much of motherhood, you not only give up your sense of personal space but also your actual body. You grow a human for 10 months. And then, in many cases, your body is completely responsible for feeding that human for months and months. In the case of both my sons, I felt like my body wasn't my own until they were at least a year old. And then the body you're left with, you may not even recognize.

Sleep... oh sweet sleep. In the early days, motherhood stole my sleep because I was up all hours of the day and night nurturing my children. Now -- at 3 and 6 -- it not as much that as it is staying up late tending to the other parts of my life I've set aside to be a mom. It's doing laundry at 2:30 a.m. or working into the early morning hours so you can take a half-day for your preschooler's school picnic.

Abbey Doyle and Miles Doyle(Photo: Abbey Doyle)

Clearly, this gig is full of sacrifices. We signed up for that, right? I knew going in this was going to be tough. I've learned through these first six years in the mom club that it's more difficult than I could have ever imagined.

What I'm celebrating on Mother's Day and what I've learned in the last six years: motherhood has given me so much more than it has taken from me.

That's what this holiday is about -- what my boys have given me.

Immense joy. You don't know bliss until you have watched Miles receive a sucker, even the nickel "Dum-Dum" suckers you get free for a haircut. Children know joy. They exude it.

I was blessed with the best parents ever who gave me what I thought was the untoppable sense of unconditional love. But then, I had my own kids. That bucket floweth over.

Miles and Owen, you've given me a new purpose to live. Much of my life I had a laser focus on just one thing -- work. Everything hinged on how that one thing was going. If I had a bad day at work -- stressful encounter with a source, reader complaint or writer's block -- everything was awful. I had one goal and one goal only, and it wasn't healthy. My children have given me a renewed purpose. I focus on them, work, my husband, my health -- all of it. I realize I need all of those to be good, for them and myself.

Like the new purpose my boys provided me, they have also helped me gain a new perspective on life. I love looking at things through their eyes. It's not, "let's run to the car so we don't get too wet during this storm." Instead, it is, "Momma, look, we get to jump in puddles! This is the best day ever!" Those dandelions aren't weeds, they are beautiful flowers my boys painstakingly pick to bring me the most beautiful of bouquets.

Miles and Owen(Photo: Abbey Doyle)

Mother's Day isn't about me. Because I wouldn't exist without Miles and Owen. I am who I am today because of those two little boys.

The pre-kid me was pretty cool. She had a ton of fun, hosted a mean party, had an entire room for her shoes and was early, to everything.

Post-kid me has to host her shoddily-planned parties at her mom's house because her house is too cluttered by clean laundry and toys. She is lucky if she remembered to wear two of the same shoes. She is rushing, sweaty and out of breath (and slightly disheveled), to every dance lesson, doctor's appointment or meeting with only seconds to spare.

I wouldn't want it any other way. Being a mom, while the hardest thing I've ever done, is also the best thing I've ever done. It is the most important part of who I am, my identity.

So on this Mother's Day, I'll call my mom to thank her for all she's done for me (and apologize for the awful coffee and burnt toast all those years,) but more importantly, I'll thank my kids for tickets to life's best ride.

Abbey Doyle is news director at the Courier & Press. She's married to Trending Topics reporter Michael Doyle and mom to Miles, 6, and Owen, 3. Reach her at abbey.doyle@courierpress.com.

Christmas Snuggles – Abbey Doyle snuggles with her sons, Owen, 3, and Miles, 6, after a noisy Christmas morning. Santa brought the boys a drum set and keyboard so they can start their own band -- every parent's "dream." Abbey is metro editor at the Courier & Press and will surely regain hearing by the time the kids leave for college.(Photo: Provided)